An Offer, A Gift, A Prize
by InquisitorVawn
Summary: When everything is taken from you, would you accept the offer that is made? When a gift comes with conditions, is it truly and freely given? And what, really, is the ultimate prize?
1. An Offer

The thundering of her heart was deafening, blending with and blocking out the roar of the crowd of nobles leering over the railings high above her head. She didn't know how many were watching, stuffing their faces with delicacies and intoxicants even as they gaped over blood and entrails being spilled on the ground below, bellowing their encouragement or disapproval to their chosen fighter. It wasn't important. What was important was her rival, the warrior before her across the gore-soaked sand. She didn't know his name, or the world he came from. He wasn't from Enkidu, but beyond that the only thing she cared about was the fact that either she or he would have to die.

Both had fought hard to get to this point, bloodied from the wounds they'd already taken in the frantic swirl of melee, chests heaving as they dragged great lungfuls of air to fuel their leaden muscles for their final push. The male had started with a pair of twin swords that he'd wielded with expert and lethal grace, putting down several opponents in short measure. But a lucky strike from the last combatant he'd faced had laid his right arm open from elbow to wrist and left it hanging loose at his side. It had missed the major blood vessels, but he was still bleeding freely and the damage to his limb had been sufficient to lose his grip on his sword, leaving it half-buried somewhere in the mass of corpses and sand.

Her hands gripped tightly around the shaft of her warhammer, raw from the repeated concussion of the weapon on armoured bodies and the flesh and bone beneath. Her arms, shoulders and back ached from hefting and swinging the heavy weapon around and she'd taken a bad shot to the side at some dimly-remembered point that had left her limping. A multitude of shallow wounds washed her already-scarred and tattooed skin with crimson and her legs wanted to shake but she wouldn't let them, couldn't let them. She had to focus, had to stand strong. She couldn't hope to move as swiftly as the sword-wielder before her, so she would have to stand and let him come to her, let him break on her guard before she put him down. There would only be one chance. Subtly she dug her toes into one of the few dry patches of sand left in the arena, letting the material sift over the top of her foot.

The attack was startling when it came, the male breaking from his guard stance with a sudden burst of speed, darting to one side to try and come in at her from her flank. She wheeled on the foot still part-buried in the sand and swung her hammer to bring it up just in time, leaving his sword blade ringing off the shaft. He'd come in too quick and she knew that even if she kicked the sand up now, she wouldn't be able to kick up high enough to spray up into his eyes and still keep her balance. Instead she pressed forward, dragging her foot in the sand to make it look like the gouges and cuts on her thighs were worse than they were, slowing her down as she wheeled her hammer in great arcs to fend him off and press him into retreating. He fell back and it became a slow dance of his feints and lunges toward her as he tested her range and her guard before trying again from a slightly different angle, trying to wear her down. When some experimental slashes broke through her guard, she realised that he was achieving his goal, she was tiring and her movements were becoming slower and easier to avoid. Her arms were shaking as she tried to keep her hammer high and she could feel the grip slipping in her sweaty palms. It was now or never.

Gathering herself she gave a hoarse scream through gritted teeth, swinging another series of tight hammer arcs at him. She aimed to bring the weapon down across his arms, trying to make him think she wanted to disarm him first and causing him to hop back much as she'd hoped he would. As she saw his gaze drop down to her feet, trying to gauge where she was going to move next, she snapped her foot and the gathered pile of sand up in as rapid an arc as she was able. He yelped in surprise and turned his head away, bringing his limp hand up to try and fend the sand away from his face and to avoid it fouling his sight. Which was exactly what she hoped he'd do. Dropping her foot forward in a semi-lunge, she stabilised herself in a wide stance and swung the hammer wide from her hips, coming in low at his side as his hand was up and he was still partially turned away. Her grunt of exertion came just a fraction too late for him, and his head snapped up with his eyes widening in recognition as the pick-end of her hammerhead went crashing into his side with as much of her weight as she could muster behind it.

The effect was immediate and brutal. The jeering and cheers from above were choked into shocked silence as the crunch of his ribcage collapsing rang around the arena. Her hammer tore through bone, flesh and organs beneath, fully ripping out a chunk of his side in a welter of gore from the impact. She let the momentum of the weapon carry it around, letting it fly from her hands rather than trying to arrest its motion. It was her last-gasp attempt, and either she'd killed him in this moment or it would be her turn to die. She collapsed to her knees, awaiting the retaliatory attack.

There was a moment of silent tension before she raised her head at the sound of a choking, gasping gurgle from somewhere at her side. Her opponent lay shattered, blood, bone and organ-pulp leaking from the horrible collapsed cavity in what was once his ribcage. Air wheezed through the hole as he struggled to breathe, strangling on his own blood. She realised then as she looked at him that she felt nothing. No pride in beating him. No fierce joy at managing to survive against all odds. No sorrow at the death and destruction.

Nothing.

Above and behind her somewhere, she heard something shouted in the harsh Imperial tongue before cheering rose once more. It didn't make sense to her. Nothing made sense any more.

From the corner of her eye she could see the hulking forms of the machine-beasts she'd been told were called servitors making their way across the sand, some trundling on fat treads and others lumbering on clumsy legs. Some paused to pick up the bodies and pieces, trundling the remnants off to wherever it was they disposed of them. She'd long suspected it was somewhere that involved the rough gruel they were given as sustenance, as she'd found a shard of bone in it more than once. Knowing what was coming next, she put her head down and closed her eyes again, waiting for the rasp of the noose around her neck, the rough jolt dragging her to her aching feet.

As she struggled to stand in time enough to stop her windpipe being constricted so that she wouldn't be choked out, another rattling gurgle came from the shattered remnants of the man on the sand. Opening her eyes, she found herself staring into the eyes of her opponent, seething hatred and fire in his gaze. He wheezed through the hole in his chest cavity and another gurgle choked from his mouth.

"Sil, daughter of Nav…" The words that burbled through his bloody mouth were spoken in perfect Korkat, the native tongue of her homeworld. A language this man should not rightfully have known. This stopped her in place, making her realise that the servitor that had her by the neck wasn't pulling with its customary urgency. In fact, she further realised that everything around her had seemed to stop; the other servitors had paused in their collection duties, the nobles above had stopped roaring and cheering. All she could hear was her own struggling breaths and the death-rattle of the man in front of her and it made a chill run down her spine.

"Who speaks to me?" Sil replied, steeling herself and trying to answer her opponent - or whatever it was speaking to her - with more confidence than she really felt.

The laughter that issued from the ruined man-thing in the bloody sand made her think of fire and death, the collapse of worlds and the ruin of an Empire. It felt ancient "Who I am is not important. What am I, perhaps that's the question you should be asking…"

The voice made her fingers itch for the weight of her hammer again, she longed to lunge against the rope that held her, to finish the work she'd started and smash the warrior into a thousand thousand pieces beneath her. This world of so-called "civilised" men held horrors beyond those she could have ever dreamed back amongst the trees of Enkidu, and now more than ever she would have given everything she had to see the whole place turned to ashes.

The mirthless laugh bubbled wetly once more "I can help you Sil. With me, you could rise to the top of this stinking pit. You could climb your way to freedom, make them pay. Take from them what they took from you - their homes, their families… their lives. Every one that took pleasure in your struggle to survive… you could take your blood price from them all… With my help."

As the creature spoke, Sil could hear the screams rising and echoing dimly behind her. She could feel the flames on her face, smell the hot blood and feel the glory in their destruction. Revenge, in its purest, most violent form.

She gritted her teeth and snarled, turning away as best she could in her restricted state "No! There is no honour in the slaughter you offer! I will not listen to this!"

"Do you think the civilised men cared for honour when they stole you from your home and tribe, Sil? Deny me, if you will. But every death at your hand will feed me, make me stronger. And I will make my offer again. Perhaps with some time to think it over, you'll see the wisdom in my ways…" The laughter again, blood and chunks of tissue spilling onto the sand as everything seemed to shudder back to life around her. As she struggled to shout another denial, she was dragged by her neck from the arena, back to the holding pens to wait for the next event.


	2. A Gift

The flickering globes of light that punctuated the corridors did little to dispel the gloom of the cell block, the dank stone walls seeming to drink in what little illumination was provided. Overhead, the vaulted ceiling arched into a darkness that seemed to press menacingly above any who dared traverse it. A lone servitor trundled dutifully through the shadowed halls, dragging behind it a battered and bleeding female figure. It seemed heedless of the captive's struggles to retain her footing as she tottered along in its wake, hauled by the noose that cinched tight around her neck and reduced her to struggling, ragged breaths any time she dared fall too far behind it.

There was a momentary reprieve when the servitor bundled suddenly to a halt, turning its head to examine a wall-plate with one of its mechanical eyes, the bilious wash of its scanner near-blinding compared to the other lights of the hall. Once the code presented there had been digested and verified, it reached out to grasp her upper arm between cruel metal pincers, dragging her forward and holding her tight whilst the noose was detached from her neck. As she was turned to face the door, an unpleasant blurt of chittery noise was released by the machine behind her and somewhere within the wall there was a low thud as a mechanism was disengaged. After a moment, gears within reluctantly engaged and the heavy door ground in protest as it slid to one side. She was pushed rather unceremoniously into the room that had opened, her feet catching and sending her sprawling over onto the stones. A bright lance of pain spiked through her body as she fell, greying out her vision and leaving her stunned breathless and barely able to hear the door grinding shut behind her.

Sil could feel more than hear the wet rattle in her lungs as she writhed and gasped for breath on the floor, wincing at the sparkling bursts of pain as shattered ribs ground together with the desperate heaving of her chest. She'd been roped and dragged from the arena by virtue of the fact that she'd still been standing where none of the others had, but she wasn't at all sure that she'd won. It wasn't necessary to be a bonesetter to recognise the ache in her chest; the horrible wet feeling when she tried to inhale, the sensation that no matter how deep she tried to breathe, she just was incapable of getting enough air into her lungs. It felt like she was on the verge of suffocating despite the deep breaths she was dragging. She knew from painful experience that several ribs were broken and suspected she may have even punctured one or both of her lungs, though she couldn't really be sure. But she'd seen enough others slowly drowning to death on their own blood, no injuries visible from the outside but still gasping and choking as she seemed to be, to have her suspicions.

With a groan of effort she managed to pull herself up, huffing and coughing as she shuffled forward on hands and knees, finding her way to the wall where she could turn to drop herself against it, barely propped up far enough to allow her beleaguered lungs some space to expand. Though dim compared to the halls outside, the cell was just provided with illumination enough to see by once she'd finally managed to pant away the agony of her exertions. Not that there was much to see. Four stone walls that she could feel were too solid to try to break down or to scream through. In one corner a pile of mouldering straw and rags did for bedding and there was another, similar dark huddle in the middle of the floor. The doorway was filled by the thick metal sliding door that she'd been pushed so rudely through and she realised as her eyes adjusted that there was a single panel in the middle that looked like it could be drawn open, possibly for food to be shoved through. She'd never been held in a cell like this before, and she had no idea of the possible reason why, except to suspect it had something to do with getting so badly injured in the last fight. It was certainly the first time she'd ever been injured so badly and wondered if it was somehow related.

There was no way to tell how long she was left there in the semi-darkness to wallow in her pain. The only method she could use to try and figure out how much time had passed was by trying to count her laboured breaths or the beat of her heart, and she realised with a start after several failed attempts that she was losing count regularly as she dipped in and out of consciousness. After a while she simply gave up trying, letting the count slip from her mind and setting herself adrift. Unfettered, her mind started to fill the cell with memories of her home, pushing back the cold stone walls and floor in favour of the thick, deep green tree foliage and rough-hewn wooden platforms and planks of her old village. The smell of damp, cold earth and strange machine oils was supplanted by the deep green scent of cut boughs, the warm perfume of the sun high above breaking through the thick canopy and dappling the platforms and bridges that extended between the trees and made up her tribe's home.

A sense of peace, a vague and gentle feeling of contentment suffused her and she wondered foggily if perhaps this was the hallmark of her demise. Perhaps she had already passed the threshold back in the real world, and this was the final glimmerings of her soul before the Skyfather took her to His golden palace beyond. For a time she simply sat there, cherishing seeing her home once more. She knew it was all a fantasy of her mind; there was no way that Enkidu was ever this peaceful and calming. But if her last thoughts before finally dying were going to be a dream of her home, then she could think of worse things to occupy her time.

The gentle feeling of numbness had extended down through her limbs, leaving her feeling as if she was detached from everything of concern, the deadweight of her body left behind now. Even the pain as she breathed had subsided to an occasional wash of discomfort, the lancing, sparkling agony seeming to belong to someone who wasn't her, claws rendered ineffectual as she drifted. She pondered momentarily if she could voluntarily detach herself from the broken meat of her body, to seek her own peace on her own terms rather than waiting for it to expire. But the thought itself flushed her mind with rage; that she would even consider just fading away and leaving those who'd torn her life so traumatically apart unscathed left her nearly shaking with her anger.

As she considered and rejected the idea, a cold shadow welled up from the platform before her. The sun filtering through the leaves above was blotted out, drawing the numb warmth from her body and leaving an aching void in its place. She found herself looking up to the shadow, squinting slightly to try and make out any features in the darkness as it crouched over her.

 _You are dying Sil, daughter of Nav._

The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once, a charnel-stink on the wind that gusted over her as it spoke. She could feel fingers that seemed to burn on her ankle despite the numbness that had taken her extremities "And yet, still you bother me…" Her voice was a hoarse rasp, throat torn from hours of screaming and drawing great breaths to fuel her attacks in the arena above.

 _If my presence is a truly bother, you need only do one thing and I will leave._

Sil realised with an uncomfortable jolt that the burn of the fingers was tracing its way up her leg, scouring the numbness and leaving her able to feel everything that had faded away - the ache of her muscles, the cold rasp of the stone beneath her leg, the dampness that soaked through the soft leather of her clothes "One single thing and you will leave me in peace? I would be so lucky. Go on then and name your price, beast. Let me see what you'd ask of me to leave me be."

 _Tell me that you want to die. Say those words and I will let you._

There was a pause. Sil willed her mouth to open, tried to push the air from her lungs and through her vocal cords, wished her lips and tongue to form the shapes that would manipulate the sounds. I want to die. Four words. The moment stretched on, the burning feeling starting to scour through the rest of her body, bringing back the pain in her chest and arms and back, the labour of her breathing.

 _The pain is still there, isn't it? Bones are broken, organs ruptured. You have internal bleeding, punctured lungs. You're so close to the edge, say the words and I'll let you go. Surely it's that easy._

"I want to…" The first three words would come to her, forced with great effort past lips now dry and cracked with bloody fissures. But the fourth, that elusive fourth, the key to the task the creature had given her.

 _You want to…?_

"No!" The denial snapped forth before Sil realised it was her own mouth speaking, her own voice forming the single syllable. The burning hands were drawn up from her ankle and pressed to her cheeks, the featureless shadow-face staring down at her with an expression she could only feel rather than see, bathing her face with the heat of a burning world.

 _I didn't think so. You can't bring yourself to say you want to die, not while those embers of hate still smoulder in your heart. But still you deny me. I could do so much for you. Perhaps I will do something for you. I grow closer with every life's blood you spill on those sands, perhaps I should show you what I can do… if you accept me._

A maelstrom of flame ripped through the village in Sil's mind, burning the trees to ash and sending the settlement tumbling down from its precarious hold just beneath the canopy, planks and ropes alight and trailing sparks as they fell. She could feel the fire climbing around her, consuming her and everything she could see. It sucked the air from her lungs and crawled down her throat, scorching her from within and burning everything she was to nothing. She would have screamed but there was no voice left, and all she could do was pray for darkness, pray for the fire to burn itself out.

Then as quickly as the conflagration had risen, it was snuffed. In its absence there was nothing but darkness and the faint smell of smoke and ash, underpinned by wet stone and rot. Sil sat upright from the wall and gasped for breath again, her chest expanding easily and her lungs filling with the damp air. The sparkling bursts of pain, the sudden white lance that had greeted every movement previously were all gone. In their place was nothing but heat, a burning desire that was banked for now but simmered deep, an urge to rend and slaughter, to climb a mountain of the dead and burn the world to ashes as the village in her dreams had burned.

 _Take my gift and know it Sil, daughter of Nav. One day you will understand the value of what it is that I give to you, and you will welcome me…_

The last echoes of its voice faded from her mind as Sil pushed herself to her feet, her fists clenched in impotent anger as she was left to stand there in the darkness, filled with rage and a strange, vital energy with nowhere to expend it.


	3. A Prize

The fight would not been easy. Though she had denied its offers, the being had sealed her wounds and knitted her shattered and grinding bones, had flushed the exhaustion from her body and left her feeling refreshed and ready to take on the world in its wake. But the strange vigour it had suffused her with had not lasted, fading in the following days and it was completely gone by the time she'd been called forward from the cells once more. Where she'd felt for those few days as if she could take down the walls and wreak havoc on the whole of the galaxy, as she strode forward to collect her warhammer and make her way to the preparation chamber once more she realised that the old aches and pains had set back in, and a certain leaden feeling had sunk into her arms and legs and left her feeling flattened with the weight of it.

The crowd seemed larger this time, the roar of excited voices and applause washing down the echoing lift shafts to the holding cages, a maelstrom of babbling noise washing around the fighters as they waited to be lofted to the arena floor. To Sil's right a massive beast of a male humanoid hammered on his cell bars, roaring in a tongue she couldn't comprehend, his heavy brow thunderous with rage. He bore no man-made weapons, his club-like fists scarred and branded where they'd served as both hammer and shield in fights past. His body seemed made of tumorous slabs of muscle, barely given decency by a scrap of loincloth that appeared to be stapled directly to his flesh and chains that crossed and wrapped around his chest and arms. Even as Sil watched, a servitor wielding a shock-baton approached and reached in through the bars to administer a jolt, causing the beast to roar and thrash in pain; though he did draw back from the bars for a time, clearly having suffered the shock-baton as a method of restraint in the past. She marked the beast as one to steer away from, to give him space to expend his rage and exhaust himself on others before she approached. With luck, another would manage to fell him before she was forced to turn her hand to the task. Without, perhaps at least he would at least tire himself some murdering them instead.

Sil turned her attention to the cage on the left then. It was still and silent in comparison to the muscle-beast's, and for a moment she thought that it had been left empty, until the faintest hint of movement in one of the back corners caught her eye. What she thought at first was a huddled pile of rags in the corner resolved into a slender form, uncurling and straightening to stand as she watched. The features were indistinct, shadowed beneath a tattered hood pulled forward over its face and she couldn't tell if it was male or female; but as it moved to prepare she realised what she'd taken as ropes designed to keep its robes in place around its waist were actually a pair of blade-tipped whips, uncoiling and taken in its hands in readiness.

Around them the mechanisms began to engage, gradually downing out the roar of the crowd as machines ground into sullen life, engines straining to gather up the chains that connected to the cells and take up the slack, drawing them upward toward the ceiling and the entrances to the arena. Sil braced herself on a wide stance, her hammer gripped ready in both of her hands, her eyes returning to lock on the cage door before her. A thought sprang unbidden as she waited, a doubt that had been planted by the being that had tried to tempt her taking deeper root. It had been conveyed in broken words and childish mime that if she'd fought well, had won the battles presented to her, that she would be freed and taken back to her home. Enkidu, they'd grunted in their best approximation of her tongue. Win fight. Go free. But would she? How many fights had she fought, men and women had died to her hammer? How close to death had she come? And still it didn't seem enough to force them to free her.

With that thought an urge took her, a suicidal notion that she should just lay down her hammer and walk into the arena unarmed. They weren't going to free her. She would never return home to Enkidu, and if they weren't going to keep their word then why should she fight for their amusement any more? All she was doing was playing into what they wanted, the savage beast-woman fighting and fighting and fighting until she fell. The realisation hit her then; the creature was right. They had never intended to let her go. Their amusement came from watching how long it would take her to fall, their hollering voices were the calls of those who'd wagered on her success or failure - but none actually cared what happened to her, Sil Naveen. She was just more fodder for their amusement. They all were.

For several breathless minutes as the cage cranked slowly upward into the light she wavered there, torn between rage and despair. She would never see her home or clan again, she would die in this arena on the blood-soaked sand. If she fought now, threw her everything into destroying all who stood before her, and somehow managed to succeed and overcome all of the other combatants then she would simply be taken and the cycle would repeat again. Or she could follow the urge she'd had. Lay down her weapon and walk into the arena, find the most lethal of her opponents and stand defenceless before them, let them cut her down and it would finally be over.

As the cages finally drew toward the apex of their journey, the roar of the crowd swelled and swept over them once more, drowning out the grind of machinery and blotting Sil's thoughts from her mind. The despair that had grown in her was instantly washed away, drowned in a sea of rage. She would fight, it was the way of things on Enkidu. Life wasn't precious if it was given too easily. But she would be damned if she was going to keep fighting for their amusement, to spill her life and the lives of others on the imported sands of fat, soft nobles as dangerous playthings.

 _In the places between, something smiled._

Muted compared to the echoing screams and yells of the excited crowd, the cage doors unlocked with a dull series of clanks and rattles. Sil was on edge, listening for the sound, and as the cage doors in the short entry corridors around the arena were yanked upward and flew open she was already off toward the blinding brilliance of the arena floor, her hammer shaft gripped tightly between steel-strong fingers. In the middle of the space a hill of the rusty sand had been built up around some "ruins" that the nobles had undoubtedly paid to be constructed; it was a conceit they sometimes appeared to take enjoyment in, making their playthings squabble over the false building as a method of bringing new life to their sport. As in the past, she knew that if she could be one of the ones to take the high ground early, she would stand a better chance over all.

And she evidently wasn't alone in this thought, as several others made a break from their entrances toward the construction in the centre as soon as they laid eyes on it. Around them some others veered, seeking the nearest opponent to begin the carnage. Her slab-muscled cage-neighbour was one of the first, screaming rage as he turned immediately to thunder toward a man holding a powered sword of some kind, reaching out to eclipse his head in one meaty paw even as the crackling blade was jammed into his middle. If he felt the searing wound he gave no indication, still screaming as he simply crushed the man's head like a rotten nut-fruit and left the headless corpse seizing in the sand, his momentum carrying him forward into the next warrior along.

The climb up to the ruins was tricky, the sand shifting underfoot and slowing down even the fleetest of the fighters. It was the equaliser, with as much brute strength as quickness needed to struggle upward over the unstable ground without falling or sliding back. Though some early attempts by the climbers to pick each other off were made, an unspoken agreement was soon reached for all to focus on their own ascent rather than getting bogged down in fighting on the slope. Sil was amongst the last of the first to reach the summit, cresting the peak and stumbling onto the open stone terrace as the first climbers were catching their breath and readying their weapons. She'd barely had time to get her own desperate heaving under control when the second wave were struggling over the edge and into the wall of weapons that waited for them.

There was no room for a tactical defence, the precarious alliance of the first climbers falling apart even as the flood of the second and third waves started to stagger in amongst them. All that had been gained by the flight to the top was a moment of breathing space and a small patch of stable ground beneath their feet; everything else was as treacherous as ever, even more so as the wild surge of the fight started to press in. Blades flashed in the light that beat down from unknown sources above, hammers and glaives swung through the crowd and opened gaps that filled before they were even seen. A single cry surged from the massed throats of the "civilised" men of the crowd watching down over them. Bloodlust had risen.

Before long, falling body parts and spilled blood made keeping footing on the stonework just as difficult as on the sand outside. Sil had fallen back more toward the centre, away from the pillars that bounded the edge to allow herself more room to swing her hammer, pushing forward to open up more space for herself and drawing back to allow them to surge on once more, into the range of her weapon. She was finding despite the scale of the battle, the sheer number of enemies she was wading through, she wasn't feeling the customary exhaustion that would start to build up after even a short engagement. Every crunch of bone shattering beneath the head of her hammer jolted up through the shaft, from her hands into her arms and into her core, invigorating her. The bright, coppery scent of blood set her mouth watering, leaving her hungering for more. She was heedless of the gouts of vital fluids that bathed her skin, her footing sure and her strikes effortless where others around her were flagging and falling. The bite of blades or concussion of other bludgeoning weapons into her unguarded flank as she followed through on a swing in the other direction felt like little more than the bites of a swamp-fly, an irritation she could ignore until she swung back and swatted them away. It was glorious, delicious carnage of a type she'd never truly known before.

She was unstoppable, a monster. The blood flowed and it did not matter if it was hers or theirs, they all fell before her. Laughter split the air, seeming to issue from everywhere around her, the throats of dead things barking their amusement.

From a blind spot to her side there was a flash of ragged grey, an impossibly fast motion blurring past her eyes. A crack of displaced air snapped next to her ear as the bladed whip coiled back on itself and slashed her brow on the way past. Sil jerked her head back, a flap of skin tearing away and dragging down over her eye, spoiling her vision with a welter of blood. As she let go of her hammer with one hand to try and dash the blood away, to rip at the trailing flap of skin and pull it away from obscuring her sight, the other whip lashed out and tangled around her arm, the bladed end biting deep into the muscles of her hand, jerking it away from her face. She was staggered, taken off-balance by the sudden yank against her centre of gravity, and the figure took advantage of her stumble to yank the whip down, tangling the end around its leg and stepping heavily on it to try and drag her to her knees.

Despite her efforts to catch herself, Sil found herself falling forward toward a wicked-looking jagged blade that was held low and pointed up toward her face. She tried to haul her hammer around and swing it at her assailant, but the angle was wrong and the metallic head simply rang off the stonework beneath her. Rage gripped her heart, she knew that it couldn't end like this. She wouldn't let it end like this.

 _I'd like you to rethink my offer Sil, daughter of Nav._

As the voice whispered in her ears, Sil realised that time had frozen once again, the braying crowds in the stands fallen silent. Her opponent was still, blade aimed at her face and unwavering; she herself was poised somewhere in mid air, one foot off the ground and the other leg half-buckled beneath her from the awkwardness of her stance. Pinned and unmoving in the impossible position, on this occasion she realised it might be unwise to struggle.

 _This is the last time I will offer this to you. The opportunity to survive. To fight. To take your revenge and make them pay._

The light seemed to catch the jagged edges of the weapon before her, dancing on every point. She could see herself, the unnatural hold on her body released, unable to stop her fall toward that blade. It gouged her face, burying itself in her eye, in her brain. It struck her then that she could see no other shadows, no other forms looming toward the fight. It was her and the one before her. They were the last, and she was about to fail.

 _You have tried but a sip of my power and look where it has taken you._

The strange energy that infused her drained away in an instant and her breath was trapped in her lungs from the sheer force of pain that wracked her body all at once. She could feel bones that had broken, splintered beneath and in one case even pushing through her skin where others had slammed heavy weapons into her. Lacerations had rent both her leathers and the flesh beneath and they split open once more with a welter of blood that bathed her skin in heat and left her light-headed.

 _You know I can heal you. Wounds that would fell an ordinary man are nothing to me. I can mould your flesh, remake you stronger, better. Nothing would stand in your way._

Every beat of her heart sent another flood of hot blood surging over her skin and draining to the floor beneath her. Though everything was frozen, she could feel the world beginning to spin around her, the lights above starting to fade. She'd fought far beyond any human capacity under the influence of her unknown seducer, and now that its favour had been withdrawn she realised that she would be dead before her head even landed on the blade. A voice croaked forth from a throat near ruptured from screaming, and it took her a moment to realise that it was hers.

"I want them to pay…"

Lilana yanked the screaming barbarian woman down toward her leafblade. She grunted in exertion as she used the much heavier warrior's own weight against her, pulling her off-balance and jabbing the blade upward at the same time, angling it so the bulk of the blade jammed into her eye and the brain behind. As soon as she felt the blade bite into flesh, she let go of both it and the shardwhip, allowing the latter to unloop from her leg as she danced backward to avoid the bulk of the body falling on her. The screaming ceased abruptly, supplanted by a beat of silence before the shouting and cheering from the stands above resumed once more. It was with only the barest hint of surprise that the assassin realised that she was the last on her feet, the few groaning bodies in the pile that blanketed the ruins merely wheezing out their death throes before her.

She'd done it, she'd survived. Her Lord would be pleased with her performance, and he'd perhaps even offer her a reward above the wager he'd offered for her to make it through the arena as she'd made sure to put on a good show. She turned, throwing back her hood to reveal herself, holding up her hands to wave to the crowd, seeking out her Lord to make a show of bowing to him. The shouting and applause was thunderous, and despite her normally reticent nature she revelled in it. For once she was being feted for what she did, and it…

The crowd was shocked into stunned silence as Sil's body lifted from the ground, settling back on its feet and almost casually swinging the warhammer one-handed in a backhand arc at the grey-cloaked assassin's side. The impact caught her completely unaware and sending her slight body into a pillar, snapping her spine before she could even scream. What was once Sil drew its head up to gaze into the crowd, passing its free hand over its face, dragging the leafblade from its eye and tossing it aside, pressing the jagged flap of skin back into place and baring teeth in a rictus grin even as the shattered ruin of its eye reformed.

It bowed theatrically then looked around, stepping forward to stand almost casually on the shattered and twisted corpses at its feet, warhammer trailing lazily in one hand. The mohawk Sil had worn was crusted into jagged spikes, pushed back from its face and tacked in place from the fluids that had she had spilled before she had fallen. Dark eyes danced with the embers of a fire that could be seen even from the height of the stands, and the grin it wore stretched immeasurably, inhumanly wide. The dark leathers it wore were stained almost black and glimmered wetly in the light, though the blood that had caked its skin had seemed to absorb back into it as it moved. The creature chuckled darkly, putting one booted foot forward to pose on the pile, lifting its free hand toward the stunned silent crowd almost as if it were presenting them with a gift " _ **Every drop of blood spilled on this sand will be repaid in kind. There will be an accounting, and none will be spared… We will come for you.**_ "

The nobles were too startled to scream, unsure of the thing they had just witnessed there, if they should be afraid or not. But as it turned to stride away, stepping easily over the dead things and making its way toward the tunnels that would grant it exit from the arena, it grinned knowingly to itself. They would start screaming soon.

They always did.


End file.
